OK, a week has almost passed. Pretty soon we will be saying "What?! So soon?! Ramadan has gone!"  

Here are some of my favorites in this week's reading:

-"What! do you enjoin men to be good and neglect your own souls while you read the Book? " 2:44

This one serves as a good reminder to me to simply practice what I preach.  It is always easiest to criticize whilst I could be guilty of the same mistake.

-" It is not righteousness that you turn your faces towards the East and the West (in prayer), but righteousness is this that one should believe in Allah and the last day and the angels and the Book and the prophets, and give away wealth out of love for Him to the near of kin and the orphans and the needy and the wayfarer and the beggars and for (the emancipation of) the captives, and keep up prayer and pay the poor-rate; and the performers of their promise when they make a promise, and the patient in distress and affliction and in time of conflicts -- these are they who are {true (to themselves) and these are they who guard (against evil). " 2:177

Cannot comment on how this one touched me.  Prayer is a tool, yes, we will be questioned about it, but what good is it if it does not affect our souls to the better?

- "Who is it that will offer of Allah a goodly gift, so He will multiply it to him manifold, and Allah straightens and amplifies, and you shall be returned to Him." 2:245

Sobhan Allah, God is asking US to do good, while this good is for our own benefit, yet Allah describes it as a "goodly gift" and He is the one who is in no need of any gifts.  It reminds me of this saying "It is not strange that a poor man tries to woo the heart of a wealthy, but the wealthy trying to woo the heart of a poor." 

- "And guard yourselves against a day in which you shall be returned to Allah; then every soul shall be paid back in full what it has earned, and they shall not be dealt with unjustly. " 2:281

A reminder to pack all the things that I will need for my journey away from this temporary place to where we will forever reside and to lose all the things that won't help me. Good deeds and intentions, good relations, kind words and helping others are on my constant "shopping list". Yet sometimes I might stop for a snack along the way, that ends up taking me further down the road for even more useless and sometimes "harmful" items.   May Allah guide us all to what is good and keep us away from what is evil inshaalah. Amen.

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